Ten people in the building were killed following the quake, while two other people in the city died after being hit by falling debris.

READ MORE: Chinese tourists on Lunar New Year vacation left reeling by Taiwan quake, as death toll climbs to 13

Local media reported that shoddy building materials, including empty tins and Styrofoam that had been used as filler in wall beams, could be one reason why the 16-storey Wei Guan residential block – which included a care centre for newborns – collapsed so easily.

The building’s floors fell straight down onto one another other, with the lowest floors collapsing into a pile of rubble and twisted metal after the quake struck at 3.57 am at the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday weekend.

The Tainan City Government said 261 people, based in 96 units, were residents of the building at the time of the collapse. So far, 258 people have been pulled from the rubble. Ten of them, including the baby, died on the way to hospital, the city government said.

Rescuers are still looking for three other residents that remain missing. Aided by search dogs and life detecting devices, the rescuers are frantically searching through the ruins.

“As eight people are still unaccounted for, we are doing everything we can to look for survivors,” a firefighter, who was part of the rescue team told reporters.

More than 1,230 rescuers, including 840 soldiers, have been deployed as part of the rescue operation, the central disaster response centre said.

READ MORE: The damage dealt by Saturday’s shocking Taiwan quake

The epicentre of the quake, which reportedly had the power equivalent to two atomic bombs, was actually located 45 km away from Tainan in Meilung, in Kaohsiung City, Kuo Chi-wen, director of the earthquake centre under the Central Weather Bureau, said.

“But Tainan was hit hardest of all because it is a big terrain with relatively soft geological formation. The impact tends to be amplified when it is a shallow earthquake,” Kuo said.

The shockwave in Tainan was reported to have lasted 44 seconds, compared with one of less than 20 seconds in Kaohsiung, the earthquake centre said.

The Tainan government said the quake had led to the collapse of nine buildings, including Wei Guan, and damaged five others in the city. Two people had been killed by falling objects during the tremor, but no residents in other buildings in the city had been killed.

Johanna Ma, a Hong Kong resident who was in Tainan visiting her-in-laws with her husband at the time the quake struck, told the South China Morning Post she felt as if someone was shaking her violently during the quake.

“I thought someone had grabbed me by the shoulders and was shaking me violently as I slept,” he said. “After five seconds, I realised it was a giant earthquake.

“We quickly grabbed a few belongings and walked down 12 flights of stairs. We drove to a building that had collapsed near our home in the eastern district of the city. We saw that the second floor had sunk to ground level and the first floor had disappeared.”

READ MORE: Local hostel owner compares Tainan temblor to devastating ‘September 21’ quake in Taiwan

Kate Chou, who runs a hostel in Tainan, described Saturday’s tremor as the “return” of the 1999 devastating earthquake.

“I was on my way to the bathroom when the earthquake struck,” she said. “The ground was not only moving sideways, but up and down as well. It felt like the September 21 earthquake had returned.”

The deadly 7.6-magnitude quake of September 21, 1999 killed about 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s recent history.

Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou ordered an all-out effort to help people in need following the quake. China’s Premier Li Keqiang also expressed his concern about the disaster, while the mainland government has offered to send help to aid Taiwan’s rescue efforts.

Additional reporting: Samuel Chan, Phoenix Man-ki Kwong and Kathy Gao